The Terri Schiavo saga exposed the prickly euthanasia issue for the nation and the world. Many people, yours truly included, still believe that Terri Schiavo was more alert than we were lead to believe and that she did wish to live. Again, our bodies belong to God. Even when we suffer, we come closer to Christ, who suffered for us. Someone on a feeding tube tends to be very much alive, and without rehashing the entire story, there was no “mercy” in the so-called “mercy killing” of Terri Schiavo. Am I wrong? Deny yourself food and water for a couple weeks, and just before you die, tell me how you feel! There is no mercy in that kind of death. It is needless, and agonizing torture. We treat animals and prison inmates better than this woman, who had every right to live, and committed no crime to deserve the cruel and inhumane death given to her, and that God’s Commandments and our Constitution forbid.
Our Bodies… “On Loan From God”
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Half a world away, Sydney Claire Smith, 14 months, lay in Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin battling the identical illness. Her kidneys and liver shut down and her heart stopped twice for a total of 36 minutes, as the infection that began in her urinary tract ravaged her tiny body. Her parents, Jillian and Shannon Smith, stood by helplessly as their once healthy infant was on the brink of death. As they prayed and kept vigil at their daughter’s side, the television news alternated coverage of the final hours of Terry Schiavo’s life after she was removed from a feeding tube and the pontiff whose body succumbed to the infection on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 2.
Snip...
Initially, there was no improvement. Father Reifenberg was summoned and, using oils blessed in the Holy Land given to the Smiths by a family of another sick infant, conferred the sacrament of the anointing of the sick.
“At this point, we also became acquainted with Padre Pio,” recalled Jillian describing how a cousin gave her a biography of the 20th century Italian priest who bore the stigmata - the bleeding wounds of Christ - and who was canonized June 16, 2002. “He (and Pope John Paul II) became a sort of prayer focus for us.”
More than coincidence
Incidentally, my tag line is from the Divine Mercy...
Pope, Padre Pio credited for saving girl near death
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